Hot Topics:

Airwaves: Hidden treasure

By Damien Willis/For Pulse

Posted:
03/07/2013 01:00:00 AM MST

As a young boy, I read nearly all of the Hardy Boys adventures. I would sit for hours in silence, turning the pages as Frank and Joe solved the mystery at hand. The books were not sophisticated, and I can't remember a single storyline, but they instilled in me a sense of adventure that lingers to this day.

For the past two weeks, I have been exploring the back roads of southern New Mexico — from Sacramento to Lake Valley, from Percha City to Russia Canyon. With my new camera in tow, I've been searching for long-forgotten settlements and ghost towns. But last week, I learned about something else that, hidden in the mountains of New Mexico, might be worth seeking.

Forrest Fenn is a Santa Fe millionaire. He has spent much of his 82 years collecting rare artifacts and has lived a very exciting life. After graduating from high school, he joined the Air Force and became a fighter pilot. During the Vietnam war, Fenn flew hundreds of missions, and was even shot down twice, in Laos and south Vietnam.

While stationed in Asia, he would use his leave to fly to Pompeii, where he began collecting rare artifacts. It was a hobby that, after he retired from the service, would become a career. Fenn opened a successful gallery in Santa Fe, dealing in art and ancient artifacts. His clientele included Ralph Lauren, Robert Redford and Suzanne Somers.

In 1988, Forrest was diagnosed with advanced kidney cancer.

Advertisement

The disease was virtually a death sentence; Fenn's chance of surviving it, his doctors said, was about 20 percent. So he began treatment, and — for the first time in his life — he starting thinking about his legacy.

Forrest Fenn beat the cancer. But while receiving treatment, he spent several years composing a poem. At the same time, he was carefully selecting and gathering gold coins, diamonds, emeralds and other gems, and placing them in a large chest. When he was finished amassing the treasure and filling the chest, he drove up into the Rocky Mountains north of Santa Fe, and he hid it.

Only Forrest Fenn knows where that hidden treasure chest, weighing more than 40 pounds and estimated to be worth more than $2 million, is. The poem Fenn wrote is said to contain nine clues which, if properly decoded and followed correctly, will lead you straight to that box of gold. It's not an easy riddle. Hundreds of treasure hunters have spent years searching for Fenn's treasure chest. And, as far as Forrest Fenn knows, no one has found it yet.

But why did he do it? Well, there are two reasons. First, Fenn believes that we spend too much time on the couch. Children and adults alike spend their free time in front of the television, or lost in a video game. His advice for parents? "Get your kids out in the countryside, take them fishing and get them away from their little handheld machines," he said in a "Today" show interview last week.

The other reason Fenn hid that bounty: He wants you to experience — as he has — "the thrill of the chase." It's the same sense of excitement that has driven him to collect those artifacts for nearly 70 years. (Fenn dug up many of the Native American artifacts in his collection himself.)

Forrest Fenn has written a memoir, aptly titled "The Thrill of the Chase." It's available exclusively through Santa Fe's Collected Works Bookstore, and online at CollectedWorksBookstore.com.

This weekend, you don't have to hunt for hidden treasure. But do something to experience the thrill of the chase.

Damien Willis is the music director at Hot 103. Read past columns and contact him at damiennow.com.

Billionaires, entertainers and athletes alike announced their intentions to pursue the Los Angeles Clippers with varying degrees of seriousness Wednesday, proving the longtime losers will be quite a prize if the NBA is able to wrest control of the team away from Donald Sterling after his lifetime ban for racist remarks. Full Story

Louie, who (like Louis) is a New York comic and a divorced father of two daughters, knows struggle and angst and cloudy wonderment. He views life through eyes with a stricken look, dwelling in a state of comfortable dread. Full Story